Guangzhou will greatly boost land supply this year in a bid to cool the rocketing property sector, but experts say the measures may not work as much of the land is in less-popular suburban village areas.
The Guangzhou Land Resources Bureau's housing management said 80 parcels of land, totalling 8.5 million square metres, would be released this year - representing a six-fold increase from 1.1 million square metres last year and the biggest offer in nine years, state media reported.
Of the total, only 1.97 million square metres would be made available in the eight urban districts of Yuexiu, Liwan, Tianhe, Haizhu, Baiyun, Panyu, Huadu and the university town on Xiaoguwei island. The suburban townships of Conghua and Zengcheng will supply the most land.
Of the 8.5 million square metres, 6.93 million square metres will be for residential projects and the government could supply only 10,000 square metres of land in each of the two highly popular districts of Liwan and Yuexiu.
Real estate agent Li Xin said it was good to increase land supply as the tight supply policy of the past had contributed to the surge in property prices.
'Monetary policies alone are not enough to cool the market. The role of the government in supplying land is crucial. So little land has been auctioned that as soon as there was an auction, property developers rushed to tender and pushed up their bids to get the land,' she said.
But the impact of the measure depended on where the government was providing the extra land.